Swachh Bharat Hackathon

Usage of toilets is the key goal of the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin. Toilet usage is presently measured on a sample basis through household surveys. There is however no technological solution available to directly measure usage of toilets. The ability to easily measure usage of toilets would allow the Swachh Bharat Mission to take immediate and responsive steps to promote usage.

The Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin invites technological solutions that can be adapted in rural areas to effectively measure usage of toilets. The solutions should be:

Affordable

Scalable

Socially acceptable

Easy to use

Accurate

The solution could be either a technology or a technique or a combination of the two to monitor usage.

Behaviour change is fundamental to the Swachh Bharat Mission. Several inter-personal techniques through community approaches to sanitation are being used across the country to trigger behaviour change. But old habits die hard and behaviour change takes time. Some people continue to defecate in the open even after having a household toilet.

The Swachh Bharat Mission invites innovative solutions to trigger and motivate people to stop open defecation and use toilets, at scale.

The solutions should be:

Scalable

Non coercive

Socially acceptable

Yield instant or immediate shift in behaviours

The solution could be in form of a technology, demonstration, technique, pictures, combination of things and others.

The Swachh Bharat Mission wants to promote affordable, sustainable and environmentally friendly toilet technologies across the nation. However, in certain parts of the country, these available technologies have not been successful in being robust and cost-effective. This is especially true for areas which are flood-prone, areas which have a hard rock surface, and areas which are remote and poorly connected with transportation infrastructure.

The Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin invites solutions for innovative toilet technologies from the participants for the following areas:

Remote and poorly connected areas or/and

Hard rock areas or/and

Flood Prone areas

Any solutions for the Upgradation of the current technology that is being adopted by the ministry that is, the twin pit system are also welcome.

It is expected that the technology is cost-effective, sustainable, reliable and durable, user-friendly, weather proof, environmental-friendly, and preferably uses locally available material (locally implies the area to which the technology is built for).

All government schools in India have been provided with toilets under the Swachh Vidyalaya initiative. However,due to the lack of human and monetary resources across many schools, continuous maintenance of these toilets is challenging. There are also other problems in certain areas like lack of adequate water.

The Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin invites solutions to:

Ensure effective maintenance of school toilets

Reduce the time needed/spent on maintenance of toilets

Reduce the cost of maintenance of school toilets

The solutions should affordable by schools in rural India (which have very slim budgets), scalable, socially acceptable, equitable and adaptable to varying sizes of school toilets.

With increase in education and awareness levels around Menstrual Health and Hygiene, more and more women and adolescent girls in the country are switching to safe sanitary options to manage their menstrual cycles. However, there is still no formal waste management system of sanitary waste. Often these are disposed off in fields, water bodies, flushed in toilets or dumped along with the regular solid waste.

MDWS is looking for technological solutions to manage and to dispose off sanitary waste. The solution should be:

Safe for the environment, and not cause any air, water or soil pollution

Cost-effective

Scalable across villages and institutions such as schools, colleges, etc.

In large parts of rural India, on-site drainage is preferable over networked drainage owing to the ease of implementation and cost-effectiveness. Any solution which helps decompose faecal matter quickly will enable easy and safe emptying of the toilet pit/septic tank. This will reduce the turn-around time for re-use of the pit/septic tank and will lead to sustained use of the toilets.

The Swachh Bharat Mission invites solutions to expedite the process of decomposition of faecal material.

It is expected that the technology decomposes the faecal material in the shortest possible time, is cost-effective, scalable, easy to implement, weather proof and environmental-friendly.